Ladysmith eBook

all day, ready to signal the least movement of its
troops, betrayed by the dust. Their own main force
is distributed in camps along the hills well beyond
the nine-miles’ limit ordained by the Convention.
The largest camp is said to be further north at Nelson’s
Kop, but all the camps are very well hidden, though
in one place I saw about 500 of the horses trying
to graze. The rains are late, and the grass on
the high plateau of the Free State is not so good as
on the Natal slopes of the pass. The Boer commandoes
suffer much from want of it. When all your army
consists of mounted infantry, forage counts next to
food.

At present the Van Reenen Railway ends at Harrismith,
an arid but cheerful little town at the foot of the
great cliffs of the Plaatburg. It boasts its
racecourse, golf-links, musical society, and some
acquaintance with the German poets. The Scotch
made it their own, though a few Dutch, English, and
other foreigners were allowed to remain on sufferance.
Now unhappily the place is almost deserted, and Burns
himself would hardly find a welcome there. In
the Free State every resident may be commandeered,
and I believe forty-eight hours counts as “residence.”
You see the advantage of an extended franchise.
The penalty for escape is confiscation of property,
and five years’ imprisonment or L500 fine, if
caught. The few British who remained have had
all their horses, carts, and supplies taken.
Some are set to serve the ambulance; a few will be
sent to watch Basutoland; but most of them have abandoned
their property and risked the escape to Natal, slipping
down the railway under bales or built up in the luggage
vans like nuns in a brick wall. In one case the
Boers commandeered three wool trucks on the frontier.
Those trucks were shunted on to a siding for the night,
and in the morning the wool looked strangely shrunk
somehow. Yet it was not wool that had been taken
out and smuggled through by the next train. For
Scot helps Scot, and it is Scots who work the railway.
It pays to be a Scot out here. I have only met
one Irishman, and he was unhappy.

But for the grotesque side of refugee unhappiness
one should see the native train which comes down every
night from Newcastle way, and disappears towards Maritzburg
and safety. Native workers of every kind—­servants,
labourers, miners—­are throwing up their
places and rushing towards the sea. The few who
can speak English say, “Too plenty bom-bom!”
as sufficient explanation of their panic. The
Government has now fitted the open trucks with cross-seats
and side-bars for their convenience, and so, hardly
visible in the darkness, the black crowd rolls up
to the platform. Instantly black hands with pinkish
palms are thrust through all the bars, as in a monkey-house.
Black heads jabber and click with excitement.
White teeth suddenly appear from nowhere. It
is for bread and tin-meats they clamour, and they are
willing to pay. But a loaf costs a shilling.
Everything costs a shilling here, unless it costs